The timing of Friday’s “Wear Orange” National Gun Violence Awareness event wasn’t meant to occur simultaneously with the Pittsburgh synagogue trial. That’s a coincidence. Josh Fleitman notes that it’s a common one these days.

“I think the trial that’s happening right now, for so many people in the Squirrel Hill community, the Jewish community, this trauma is being dragged back up,” said Fleitman, who is the campaign director for the statewide advocacy group CeaseFirePA.

Mass shootings happen frequently enough that the annual awareness event is likely going to occur around the anniversary of one incident or another.

“Last year for ‘Wear Orange,’ it was around the Uvalde shooting,” said Fleitman, referring to the massacre at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers will killed in May 2022.

“It’s just by cruel coincidence that this even happens to be adjacent to some other kind of horrific incident,” he said.

As testimony continues in the trial in which a gunman opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill, killing 11 people during worship services on Oct. 27, 2018, Friday’s rally and march intends to give survivors of gun violence a voice and raise awareness of how to help stop violence.

The “Wear Orange Weekend” in Pittsburgh is one of several similar events happening across the country this weekend intended to kick off June as National Gun Violence Awareness Month.

The gathering starts at 4:30 p.m. in Allegheny Commons Park on Pittsburgh’s North Side. It will feature speakers including Rabbi Jonathan Perlman of New Light Congregation and The Clergy Council of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence; members of H.O.O.P (Helping Out Our People), which is a coalition of families from the Woodland Hills School District; and Dr. Raquel Forsythe, Director of Trauma at UPMC Presbyterian. Perlman was inside the synagogue during the shooting and testified in the trial Thursday.

The Tree of Life synagogue housed Tree of Life, Dor Hadash and New Light congregations.

“This event really is emphasizing those who have borne the brunt of this crisis as survivors of gun violence,” Fleitman said. “There will be some difficult conversations and difficult stories by people talking about how this has directly impacted them – if they’ve lost a loved one or if they have been shot and are recovering.

“But also I think cathartic because in many ways,” Fleitman said. “For a lot of survivors, it’s healing to share their experience and implore others to get involved so other people don’t end up becoming members of this club that no one wants to belong to. We’ll hear stories of hope and strength and inspiration. We’ll hear from community leaders, including faith leaders, elected officials, nonprofit community, organization leaders, students and young people especially.”

Carolyn Ban, a member of the Dor Hadash congregation, is the steering committee chair of Squirrel Hill Stands Against Gun Violence, said that as of May 23, over 16,000 people have died as the result of gun violence.

“This is truly a cancer on our society,” Ban said.

It’s a complex issue. She noted the prevalence of accidental shootings, violence between individuals and domestic violence. She also pointed out that two-thirds of suicides are due to firearms. Easy access to a gun makes it more likely that someone can follow through on a suicide attempt.

The event will conclude with a peace march through Allegheny Commons Park.

“We want to demonstrate in a very public way in this very public place that the majority of Pennsylvanians are sick and tired of living in this epidemic, and they want to see something be done about it,” Fleitman said. “They want to feel safe in their communities, their schools, the grocery store, the movie theater. We can come together as a movement as a society and say ‘Enough is enough. We refuse to live this way.’”

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